


[interlude] (By the Firelight) We Watched the Storm Approach

by Itar94



Series: Building Neutron Stars [10]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Culture, Alpha Rodney McKay, Alpha Ronon Dex, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Background fic, Building Neutron Stars: Interludes, Canonical Character Death, Culture Shock, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Pregnancy, Mentions of miscarriage, Omega John Sheppard, Pegasus Culture, Pre-Series, Sateda, alternative universe, mentions of mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1323367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itar94/pseuds/Itar94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Atlantis rises from the ocean, Ronon runs with the memory of Melena burning bright in his heart, his pledges like shouting voices: <i>Once, once, I swore to protect you and I failed.</i><br/>He will not let it happen a second time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[interlude] (By the Firelight) We Watched the Storm Approach

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second of the interludes in the Building Neutron Stars 'verse. This won't make sense unless you've read the previous stories in this series. This starts pre-series and follows up until S03E10-11 The Return, which fits in [Finding a Planet to Call Ours](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1027291/chapters/2045336) on the timeline. There are also mentions of events from [Discovering Fear](http://archiveofourown.org/works/951697/chapters/1861262)  
>  **Warning** for canonical character death and mentions of mpreg and miscarriage.

****

**Promise** /ˈprɒmɪs/  
[noun; verb]  
 _an oath or vow of dedication;_  
 _to swear/declare/assure commitment_

Before he is made into a Runner, before he becomes a Specialist, before he kills his first Wraith, Ronon wants to be a poet.

He grows up in a small town by the edge of the metropolis and dreams of visiting the Capital, of seeing the grand structures, the spires reaching for the skies, and experiencing the hundred thousand tomes filled with old secrets and immortal words within the city’s Library. One day, he imagines when he’s hopeful and sixteen years old, one day his name is going to be found among those books and his words will be remembered forever, and Sateda will be proud of him.

Before his family is utterly shattered by Cullings and grief and war, he can sit in the yellow light from the desk lamps and write and make sense of the world, and forget about the terrible enemy out there, about the rising death toll and the bells ringing, the riots on the streets.

* * *

Before the War, before they lost their faith in the Ancestors and in the natural beauty of things and stopped believing that by old age was the easiest way to die, there was a Satedan who wrote an Ode, one of the Epics they always teach at school when they are to learn the names of the Great Founders and the history of the Portals; and when he’s fourteen Ronon reads it from cover to cover, tasting every single word and savouring it like a first kiss.

It’s a tragedy set in a time forgotten when the Wraith slept and there was time and resources available for humans to fight each other on their own soil. Ronon never tells anyone once he joins the ranks but he can probably recite it all word by word despite the years, despite the blood now on his hands.

* * *

 _in the land where no one rests_  
 _there I shall dig my grave  
_ _and leave it waiting_

* * *

His father is in service in the Planetary Forces (like every man and woman of his age, like every alpha and beta able to walk and shoot), nearing his third decade when he meets an unmated omega just shy of twenty years old; and at first, Ronon is told, their meeting was romantic and beautiful like in those fairy tales and everything was perfect. But in reality, he later learns, it’s sudden and rushed and exhilarating and their love is brief and painful, and they know each other for less than five months before Captain Dex of the Twelfth Legion disparates into a Culling beam while on a mission and is never seen again.

By the time Ronon sees the first Satedan daylight, his birth-parent would have succumbed to grief already if he’d been alone, but on Sateda they always make sure they will never have to be alone and broken and unguarded.

* * *

In Atlantis Ronon sometimes feels so terribly out of place.

By now, after weeks and months in the Ancestral city, alongside his team, his friends - family - after weeks and months among the Descendants, he is at home here. Yet, there are moments sometimes he’s just hit by a sharp bout of nakedness, of longing, and he misses the cluttered Satedan streets (even as he, if he allows himself to think about it, remembers the screams and the riots and the panic as the hive ships descended). He misses the loud cheering voices, the hands reaching out to grasp swords and guns as the announcements had rang through every town: _Sateda will not bow to invaders!_

He misses the voices on the radio, disrupted by uncertainty and static as the War neared its end.

The Earthlings are so different and he’s used to it now, for most part, for most part, but there are moments when they take him aback. He’s learned a lot about them, how they fight, how they think, how they display fear; he has learned to understand their references and jokes, even a lot of those that McKay makes (except the science stuff). He’s also learned about their rules, their ways of displaying affection, and their ways of tying bonds. And that is the most foreign thing, he realizes, even after all this time, even as some things are universal.

The Lanteans don’t know about the old traditions or the things that the children of Pegasus learned long, long ago, words abided as they grew under the Wraiths’ shadow. There is so much they don’t know.

There aren’t any storytellers around, the galaxy’s inhabitants too busy surviving to write history. (But maybe the Earthlings could change that.)

* * *

When Ronon is twenty years old he’s aspiring in the military, rising quickly among the ranks as the war with the Wraith grows ever more dire (every able-bodied man and woman called into battle, his childish brief hope of continuing as a poet lying left forgotten, locked in a box). Then he meets Melena, a trainee at the Medcenter in the Capital, and she’s lovely and funny and wonderful and he has never had his heart torn out of his chest before. Omegas are tempting and far too rare, slowly dying along with the rest of the world.

(He’s heard stories, of course, like every educated Satedan child has, that eons ago when the Ancestors seeded life in the galaxy there were only omegas and their protectors, the alphas, none born without gifts; and all were equal and plentiful. But then the Wraith came and everything spiralled down, and those with gifts became fewer and farther in-between. And one day there were fewer omegas than there were alphas and Ronon doesn’t know if elsewhere in the universe there might be balance, but he hopes there is, somewhere. That somewhere, sometime, no one shall have to fear being cloven in two by a merciless feeding hand, severing bonds so instantly, so cruelly.)

Had this happened a decade or half a century or a lifetime earlier, they both might have worried less and smiled more and not hesitated. But Sateda is at war and they are losing, inevitably; they cannot flee or escape and there is only the option of fighting until no one stands - and all they have left are fears and useless hope and the belief that one day things will work out. One day, there is an end, and all shall unfold as intended; one day, there shall be no more Wraith, there will be peace. There are still those who believe, the Scholars who haven’t forgotten yet, that one day the Ancestors will return and eradicate the Wraith and free the galaxy.

He doesn’t ask her to marry him, because that tradition is slowly dying, a rare and beautiful thing that almost never lasts. He’s a solider and will probably not see past thirty, but he makes her a promise anyway, to let her have him if she wishes it, as her mate (briefly, a touch in an alleyway, a few stolen kisses), her lover. If nothing else, he swears, he’ll stand by her as her Guardian, swearing the old oaths made by their people when families first began to be ripped apart by the Cullings, leaving only broken pieces behind.

For if the alpha dies (an explosion, a Wraith’s pale hand, a bullet through the gut) and the bond is between mates is abruptly severed, terribly frail and frayed, leaving the omega blinded by shadows and sorrow, the Guardian takes their place. Sometimes an omega has not just one but two or three, to ensure no child will grow up orphaned. Such is how it has been for millennia, since the first Waking of the Wraith, since the very first Culling, and ever since then the fear has clung to their skin like a second scent, strong and unrelenting.

The Wraith don’t care for families or separating fathers and mothers and children, tearing life-mates apart. The Wraith have never cared.

* * *

_two by two they came, life-bearers and custodiae, the gifted_   
_together and everlasting, is how the Ancestors seeded us ...._

* * *

When he’s twelve Ronon goes to visit his ill cousin in the Capital and by chance he gets to see the Chieftain for the first and last time. The alpha’s certain, abundant voice fills every radio channel every day now, spreading promises and hope like litter, and he is in awe of the strong man passing by in a heavily secured auto-vehicle; this man who has defended Sateda for the past twelve years without faltering. He is the absolute example of a fine leader and soldier and alpha. And, Ronon is assured by his mother (now grey-eyed and grey-haired and empty like an abandoned well), his father was just as brave and strong and he shall be proud that his father was alpha, carrying such strong blood, passed onto him.

Ronon never aspires for power, but he looks at the Chieftain and says that he shall be like him, this man in finery and armour, carrying a heavily decorated sword at his side as he waves at his people.

This man who has defended their soil with the blood and tears and sweat of thousands of soldiers no one will ever recall the names of, other than what Ronon later can remember, write down decades after when he finds himself in the Lost Old City, welcomed there like one of their own. Fragmented pieces, comrades-in-arms vanished before his very eyes (Rakai, stubborn until the final breath; Sincha, they’d sparred just three hours earlier under the Task Master’s intense supervision; Tyre, no body left to find), taken by bright beams of light. Lovers and rivals and fellow soldiers who still had some hope, the slightest belief that they could survive. (He has a handful of names and lists of merits that no longer matter.)

This man who cowers behind steel walls in underground bunkers while Sateda begins to crumble, and yet he pours speeches over the lands that _Sateda will now bow to invaders! The day is coming; arise, soldiers! arise, ye proud people of Sateda! arise, victors! Fight, fight until the end!_

* * *

The end starts closing in.

By the time Ronon is fourteen, he has seen half of his family die and none of them smiled a final time and said that it all would be all right, and he wonders if any of the Old stories ever were true or if it was just made-up pretenses. If salvation is ever possible.

He visits his mother’s grave once when he enters manhood at seventeen and it lies there silent, echoing in the rain, no wilted flowers resting by the foot of the anonymous stone. The ashes have disappeared since long ago, spread along that path in the Eastern Gardens his mother always had favoured before the death of Ronon’s father, before the beginning of the end; but Ronon can still recall the sharp smell of a burning corpse and the old hymn they’d sung to the skies so briefly, taking mere moments to say farewell before it was time to move on. And he can sometimes remember the scent of home, of his mother and their Guardian and their hearth, slowly turning to embers as all else darkened.

* * *

Half a generation before Ronon is born, his people finds the courage to step through the Ancestral Portal and fight their enemy hand-to-hand.

It doesn’t take half a generation for the Wraith to come, bearing down on them with their large ships, coming by the hundreds, darkening the skies. And there is no escape, no way in this galaxy to go where they cannot be found.

But what weak cowards wouldn’t they be if they didn’t take up arms to defend themselves? How can they not at least _try?_

* * *

It takes less than a generation to lose.

* * *

Melena often comes to him telling him of the latest news and bringing a radio so that they may listen together - and she truly hopes, truly believes.

 _Sateda will not bow to invaders!_ the Chieftain proudly proclaims. _The time has come for us to put our bravery on the line and defend our planet, our soil and our heartbeats. Sateda will not bow to invaders! For the past two centuries we have developed outside the eyes of the Enemy, refined our weapons, trained ourselves to be the best, the strongest, the bravest. The time has now come._

_Sateda will not bow ... !_

* * *

Ronon tries taking as many lives as he can, pale nameless creatures on planets he doesn’t recognize, one mission after the other, while Melena tries to keep heartbeats going back on Sateda. When he’s twenty-two, he’s already ranking Specialist and one of the best men in the Guard, and his team are in awe of him.

He is the exemplary soldier and alpha, brave and selfless and bold.

Melena is soft and sweet and pliant under his touch. And she has to be his life-mate, he thinks, intoxicated; not merely a body to fill his bed on a short-term basis but someone precious, and he’s ready to ask her if she feels any of the same. But she already has Ara, the Captain of the Fiftieth Guard of the Satedan Planetary Forces, a woman that Ronon long has admired for her strong will and fighting abilities - a good woman, a strong alpha; and if Melena’s soul belongs to her then Ronon shall stand by that. He’ll stand by that, and make sure that she’s safe so that Ara will not have to fear any more than she already must.

It is the first vow he gives her.

(He never gets the chance to make a second.)

* * *

_... in the afterlife, the strife was o'er and dust shimmering red_   
_we bonded three, out of hope_   
_to let our children live_

* * *

He never knows his father other than as a meaningless name.

He might never be known as the father to any child, and Ronon doesn’t doubt who sired the one nestled within Melena’s womb. Nevertheless, he doesn’t leave but repeats the vow: _I will protect you, be your Guardian, to let you find happiness._

Fourteen weeks later, Ara is reported lost on a mission to an enemy base they had meant to sabotage. The military funeral has her empty casket ablaze and it rains that day and for a minute there is silence, before the shouts and gunfire begins anew. Just another casualty of war, just another body among the many thousand. And Ronon writes her name on the grave, swearing quietly and looking at the sky as if it would make her hear: _Ara, your mate is safe, I promise. I’ll keep her safe._

* * *

When Ronon is twenty-four years old, the final attack of the Capital is over (the countryside already in ruins, every last village a pile of smoke and ashes and plundered bodies, stolen years, shattered dreams) and Kell’s false promises to get everyone to safety means nothing and Ronon is swept up by a Culling beam with the screams of his people yet ringing in his ears, with the image of Melena’s face as the bomb had dropped on the Medcenter and swallowed her in the explosion imprinted on his irises. And the last thing he remembers for many days then is her scent, alluring and real, a last flower struggling to break through the snow and grow.

With her memory burning in his heart, he begins to run.

* * *

In Atlantis, there is no Guardian for anybody, and he has never heard anyone utter such vows. And he asks Teyla once about it, because the Athosians practice the old traditions too; her mate-to-be, Kanaan, has a Guardian in Halling, she reveals. But the Earthlings know nothing of this, because they see differently upon such things, and Ronon doesn’t quite understand why Teyla urges him to proceed with caution when he only wants to do the best thing.

(He cannot be allowed to fail a second time.)

He only wants to protect. It’s the right thing to do - surely they have to _comprehend._

But then he remembers that Earth has never been swarmed by hive ships, the whole planet turned to ashes, and there are millions of people back there who have never had to watch their mate have their life-force sucked out of them, year by year slipping meaninglessly away in a matter of moments. There are many who are very possessive bordering on the extreme and that in itself might not be a bad thing; Ronon understands possessiveness and devotion, he knows the winding dark path, the sharp unforgiving thoughts clawing at your insides at night making it impossible to dream (guilt and flashes of anger and second glances over your shoulder).

He only wants to protect. He made a vow.

He wants to keep it, keep true to it, remember it.

* * *

No words will ever bring Melena back. And he doesn’t want her memory to be tainted, to be overtaken by grief and blood. She would not wish for him to crawl into a pit. After all, he swore to her to be strong.

One day, he must move on.

* * *

Teyla figures it out when no one else does or tries to.

“I am not sure if it is wise,” she says because she knows, she’s perceptive like that and she too is alpha; she knows far too well. She too has watched her loved ones disappear.

Therefore, she also knows she is not the one to say yes or no. An alpha may wish with every fibre of their being to become a Guardian, but it’s always the omega who chooses.

“Rodney is very possessive and - easily distraught and jealous. I believe he would have a hard time grasping the concept.”

“I’m not trying to take his place,” Ronon counters. No one will replace Melena, but there is more room in his heart than for just her; Teyla has a place there, even McKay for all that he talks too much, and Weir for letting him stay on Atlantis and find freedom. Most importantly of all, Sheppard has a place there, for stretching out a hand in the first place, for showing him that there’s a light making an end to the tunnel and revealing a hundred different paths. He has his honour and, most importantly, this isn’t at all about sex, which the Earthlings may so easily believe. This isn’t at all about that. This is about family and safety and love, of devotion and selflessness and fear during cold nights as the Wraith swarm the skies. “I’d never come between two life-mates.” Not when they’re alive and breathing. Not while they still are whole. _Not ever._

But one day they may not be so. One day the clouds return (they always do) and fill the skies making it impossible to see, and then no one should have to be alone.

And Teyla smiles a bit forlornly, and they speak two different languages yet they understand one another: “Are you sure you wish to devote yourself, Ronon?”

He doesn’t hesitate to answer, because is already doing what is asked. “Yes.”

* * *

Sometimes, Ronon dreams of times when there is no need for Guardians, when there is no fear of broken families and deserted homes, when life-mates truly will grow old together and see each sunrise and sundown as they should before all is over. Sometimes, he wonders if the Lanteans will ever find a way to the defeat the Wraith once and for all and make a brighter future.

They’ve got to at least _try._

Sometimes, Ronon dreams of a time when he will meet someone and feel ready to reach out and promise and not fear, and give his heart like his loyalty. Sometimes, Ronon dreams he will not be alone.

* * *

_and rising, the enemy, from the embers_   
_stealing the heavens, star by star_

* * *

They can sit in the mess, in the open, Teyla and he, and discuss things like this and no one gets a thing.

He leaves Teyla to explain things, because he’s not good with words, at least not aloud (not since he took up arms, since he left that final line on the desk before joining the Forces. He can’t recall all of it, only this brief fraction, a fragmented passage - ...  _they raced across the sky, between the stars_ ). Teyla can speak well, walk around foreign terms and unfold them in a tongue the Earthlings know.

Still, McKay coughs on his coffee and Ronon, expecting something like this to happen, thumps his back firmly as the alpha flails his arms struggling to breathe and Sheppard just looks quite thoughtful throughout it all, and finally, once he’s gotten air back in his lungs, Rodney shoots the Satedan a sharp suspicious look and exclaims indignantly, voice rising half an octave, “Did you just _propose_ to my mate?!”

He’s not at all surprised, because Rodney is Rodney, and he’d never take it in stride. Though they had that talk weeks ago when McKay came to realize at last that Ronon just wants to protect them all and he doesn’t want to steal Sheppard from his alpha or anybody. He doesn’t want to ruin futures - he wants to help create them.

“No, Rodney,” Teyla says with the patience of a saint, “a Guardian is not the same thing as a mate.”

Sheppard meets his gaze across the table like he does comprehend though and quirks a little smile, and that makes it okay for Ronon to lean back in his seat, flicker a casual grin at McKay in his usual unreadable silence that often draws no reaction from the scientist at all but now seems to baffle him completely, like he’s being faced with a new sort of equation that doesn’t make sense.

(They’ve saved each other’s lives and covered each other’s backs in battle too many times to count; Ronon doesn’t call them brothers all for nothing. It may take awhile, but Rodney’s smart - he’ll figure it out.)

* * *

He’ll give it all the time it takes, if so forever.

And maybe Sheppard will never agree, never understand, and Ronon will never have the honour of carrying the title of Guardian other than in his heart. It doesn’t mean he’ll pack up and leave, but his honour clashes with wishes and belief.

There is so much the Earthlings don’t know.

* * *

_and standing by the firelight, we watched the storm approach_   
_sundering slowly_

* * *

“Okay, I get it, this history thing and importance about Guardians. Teyla gave me a very long and uninteresting crash course in Pegasus history while I should’ve been busy repairing city systems or something. So basically you’ve got life-mates and everything else normal but it’s this thing about Guardians, when families are separated - was it Cullings -” and Rodney’s face darkens then as if he finally, finally understands. “Oh god. You want to be John’s Guardian in case I _die_.”

“No,” Ronon says, tasting the words before forming them, meeting the other alpha’s gaze levelly: “I want to be Sheppard’s Guardian because I care.”

“Oh my god,” the astrophysicist repeats, not quite listening and still pale; “I don’t know how worried or touched or freaked out I’m supposed to be.” Then he frowns again, deep and worried, making him look older than he truly is. “Hey, have you spoken to John about any of this? Have you? No?” There is barely any pause for Ronon to speak nevertheless breathe in-between there, so he keep quiet letting the other man ramble on for awhile more. “He’s stubborn and he’ll be totally weirded out, you know, besides this guardianship thing could be interpreted as some polyamory deal even if you so oh-so-loudly claim that it doesn’t have to involve sex at all unless all parties agree _(oh god, I can’t believe I just said that)_ and that’s, well, frowned on by a lot of people and by that I mean Earth people because apparently in Pegasus all kinds of deals are totally okay. Gods, I really didn’t need to know all that but Teyla insisted in telling me so many details. Like how almost all planets in Pegasus has this kind of culture because of the Wraith, and something about three-and-more parental arrangements and having a whole row of back-up plans in case you end up being Culled and have to let your kids be adopted and I really don’t need all these pictures in my head, I’m going to have _nightmares_ -”

And Ronon is sure he’s picturing his daughter at that moment, picturing the trembling ground and fallen spires of Atlantis and bombardments of the city, and hundreds of corpses and Sheppard’s form sprawled out empty and cold over the Ancestral control chair or over a console in one of the ’jumpers; picturing the screams and cries if the girl ever became orphaned; and he has to step in.

“That’s why,” he says simply.

* * *

A true Guardian shall always give and give and ask for nothing in return.

* * *

“You know,” Sheppard admits while they’re sparring and the omega stands with the two bantos rods poised in front of him, defensively and effectively from months of Teyla’s strict tutelage; “I’m not sure whether to be touched or weirdly creeped out.”

To clarify, Ronon says, “I’m not coming between you and McKay, Sheppard.”

“I kind of figured. This tradition thing, Teyla tried explaining to me what it means and - it’s huge and was ordinary on Sateda and I get that,” the omega admits a bit confused but not all that thrown. Perhaps his thoughts mirror those of his mate. “Just - I’ve got enough of babysitters already. Jeez, I’m not some fragile flower or something.”

“Never thought it.”

John Sheppard is quite unlike any omega he’s ever before had the honour to meet, so stubborn and selfless and easily sacrificing. Always refusing to give up. He is quite unlike anyone. And yet - by the Ancestors, _Melena_ (Ronon can never forget. never forget. _never forget_ ) -

* * *

Melena could go through the Portal along with other refugees promised shelter by Kell, could leave the dying cities and the corpses filling the hallways and Ronon tries to make her go, to keep her safe, but she refuses to leave, she is so stubborn and goodhearted and kind. And then it turns out everything Kell said was a lie and there is no way to go in either case. He pleads to her, but cannot chain her down, cannot drag her out of the Medcenter - and it’s too late, too late.

When Melena has carried Ara’s child for nearly three months, she is lost to fire and falling concrete while refusing to give up.

* * *

The first time Ronon hears of the Wraith he has not yet learned to talk. And when he manages to stand on his two feet and walk on his own, his grandfather proudly shows him his first gun and the child is only awed and happy and disillusioned.

Ronon doesn’t remember his father, claimed by the War since the very start of it. It was his birth-parent who taught him to fight, and his grandfather taught him to survive in the wild and how to overcome panic; and there was their Guardian, present since before his time began, who taught him to never be afraid, who taught him not to forget dreams.

* * *

John Sheppard is quite unlike any omega he’s ever known and far from fragile, far from breakable.

Marie Elizabeth, the girl that Sheppard carried to life, is small and fragile though and Ronon doesn’t want her having to grow up too early. He doesn’t want her to lose the chance to grow up.

* * *

 _... and we would not flee but fight  
_ _now arise, arise!  
_ _arise, ye proud people  
_ _make a name worthy of remembrance_

* * *

Then they go on another mission and they are meant to bring four men back but they bring only bodies because of the machine on M1B-129 making them see ghosts. Shame coils through Ronon’s body like dark matter, pulling everything inwards. There’s a bullet wound grazing his arm and there’s blood on the ground and the Stargate is broken, and Rodney is screaming and Sheppard collapses four seconds after McKay finally gets the machine offline making the hallucinations stop. And Ronon rushes forward too late and everything is a blur up until the Daedalus arrives picking them up, and Carson has the omega carried away on a gurney, alongside Teyla who’s feverish and trembling, her leg soaked red.

Never before has he seen Rodney as such a wreck, and no one lets him know anything for too many hours so eventually Ronon forces himself into the private section of the infirmary and there he overhears the doctors murmuring amongst themselves: _fragments from the_ _grenade_ and _shock_ and _lost the foetus._ And he remembers Melena, the fire’s swiftness, the windows imploding.

He has never been a religious man and the people of Sateda have never prayed to deities, rather honoured the fair battle, the setting sun and the beauty of natural death; and this is neither. So he sits by the bedside quietly until Sheppard comes to and no one can make him waver, and he doesn’t glance upward helplessly asking for fairness from the Ancients.

* * *

_Two by two they came, life-bearers and custodiae, the gifted_   
_together and everlasting is how the Ancestors seeded us ...._

* * *

Before Atlantis rises from the ocean, Ronon runs with the memory of Melena burning bright in his heart, his pledges to her and Ara clear like shouting voices _: Once, once, I swore to protect you and I failed. Once I became your Guardian and I failed._ He runs with the memory of their pained echoes, of grief and guilt, of broken vows, of another unborn child, another ruined future.

He cannot let himself fail a second time.

* * *

The Ancestors are not what he imagined.

They are so cold. So distant. And they drive Teyla and her people from the mainland onto an empty world which they are now forced to make their own; they drive Dr Weir and her people out of the city and refuse to listen.

There is nowhere in this galaxy that the Earthling can go and even if they could, Ronon isn’t sure they would have, because without the Ancient city they are cut off from Earth, and only from Earth can they get the resources needed to fight the Wraith. Now they can only turn around completely and the hallways are cleared and rooms emptied. In less than two days, the lives built here for the past two years are put to ruin.

Ronon wonders why they don’t drive the Ancestors out. Why they don’t fight. Why they only talk.

It doesn’t seem like the Ancestors are that keen to fight them. Ronon doesn’t _understand._

* * *

New Athos is quiet. Too quiet. No one fights. There are murmurs in dark of night, but no swords brandished. The threat of the Wraith is a constant overhang and now there are no Earth ships to help them, none of their guns, none of their hopeful strong people to watch their backs. The Genii try to make deals with them but Ronon doesn’t like the thought of fighting alongside those people - the people who tried to seize the city, the people who took Sheppard and tortured him - no. No, it cannot be done.

But nothing is heard from the Ancestors, not a single rumour of them flying across the sky with their ship and bearing fire down onto the Wraith hives. Nothing. Nothing. Not even shadows.

* * *

Then they return. Sheppard at the front and McKay by his side, and Weir and several others with them. So few and yet so relentlessly determined to take back their home. Sheppard holds out a questioning hand for him and Teyla. _Come with us,_ he says.

And Ronon doesn’t hesitate because this is the reason he joined them - _this_ is the reason Atlantis is his home.

* * *

Before he joins the Planetary Forces and meets Melena and sees the destruction of Sateda, Ronon wants to be a poet and not just any poet, but one of the grand classics who shall be recalled for a hundred generations, their names repeated for centuries within the Libraries before they burn down under the Wraiths’ gunfire. And he scribbles beauty on the walls, imagining the future and what he seeks in his life-mate is not perfection but just _enough_ ; not even beauty, merely comfort, merely peace.

Then he takes up arms and the world changes. In truth, there never was freedom - only an illusion.

For seven years he runs and forgets he ever wanted to mate with anybody. For seven years he runs and forgets safety.

For seven years he runs.

* * *

_and we raced across the sky, between the stars_   
_and discovered home_


End file.
